A Breath of Fresh Air from Bronson Arroyo

This is really great. Bronson Arroyo not only admits he used Andro until 2004 and would not be surprised if his name was one of the "magic 104". He also has some of the most level-headed comments on the whole situation I've heard from any active player. No moralizing, just honest. Like this:

"In my mind, I think you have to lump the whole era together," Arroyo said, according to the report. "A lot of people were doing it, a lot weren't. I think pitchers probably gained 3 or 4 mph on their pitches and power hitters got some more power.

"But guys like David and Manny, if they did something, it didn't make them who they were. Did it make them a little better? Probably"

And this:

Before 2004, none of us paid any attention to anything we took," he said, according to the Herald. "Now they don't want us to take anything unless it's approved. But back then, who knows what was in stuff? The FDA wasn't regulating stuff, not unless it was killing people or people were dying from it.

Mike Schmidt, who I love, noted in his book Clearing the Bases (which came out in 2006) that while he didn't try steroids, he could imagine being tempted, especially if everyone else was doing it - due to the competitive edge it may provide (or simply to keep up with the Joneses). It's time for everyone to stop acting surprised that a major league baseball player, particularly one who is paid to hit home runs, would do what the likely majority of his peers was doing, especially when it wasn't banned in baseball, especially when the rules weren't clear on what you could or could not do, and especially where if the roles were reversed, nearly every one of us would have done the same thing (or at least have been tempted).

I also liked this take by Jon Couture.